The use of pause squats to isometrically strengthen the hips is awf-some. Awful and awesome. Lilly talks about guys "hula hooping" and he also talks about finding your strongest point. This gets rid of the hula hooping and helps you to discover where you're at your strongest. I was wondering how to program the pause squats, so I just messaged the Juggernaut himself on facebook. We'll see if that gets me anywhere.

I can attest to the the awfulness/ awesomeness. Yesterday felt great this morning struggled getting into/out of my truck. My hips are sore as ever. Ill be looking for the article as I am as interested as everyone else is on here. It would nice to apply that technique to some of my clients as well as my own training! Keep up the good work boss!

This was cool stuff. Much better conditioning than a hamster wheel. Tough on the whole posterior chain. This actually made my back injury, which was hurting from yesterday, feel good. I should have used shorter rest periods, and my baby hands can't handle my big DBs. Other than that, this was fun. I plan on having conditioning only days once a week, with conditioning also being tacked on to the end of training sessions.

Felt a little weak and sluggish this session, too many days working out in a row. I still gave it hell. Good amount of volume, but I feel like I'm missing important movements too often. I don't want to become imbalanced. I can set up a "back day" or a "chest day" pretty well, but programming all of the different planes and movements is a new challenge. The next two days will be off as I watch the little brother wrestle, then deadlifts on Sunday.

Really liked the new conventional setup, and I think I got my sumo pull in order. Let me know what you think.

Snatch Grip
255x8x3

Strict Toe Elevated GM
185x8x3

BB Row
225x8x3

Short and sweet as I'm on my way to therapy. Good training session. I tightened up my GM form, trying to protect the back and hit my posterior chain. I know I can squat 275 with a heavy forward lean, but my backside needs the work. Weight is at 210, feeling good heading into my meet cycle.

I used to have my hands on the knurling, but the thing about that is that my arms then drag along my thighs and the weight gets away from my body. It's the reason I could never sumo pull heavy. I'm all for shortening the ROM, but that's a tweak I had to make. Really, I'm just pumped nobody called me fat. Yet.

LOLZ. Right now I feel stronger with conventional. Only slightly. But, I have yet to pull heavy sumo with proper form, and I've been testing my strength with the conventional deadlift since I was 15. I'll have to get really honest with myself here in the next few weeks and watch the tape closely to see which I'll be using come the 7th.

The 2-board presses were weaker than I expected, hence the paused press afterward. The overhead presses were done with a little knee bounce for overload, but no layback. I went with Prilepin's chart on the big supplemental moves.

Today I tested my limits. Not so much the limits of my knee wrap rebound and brute will, but I tested the limits of my mobility and technique. I hope from the videos I attach (bear with me on those), your sets of eyes can revolutionize my squats, and make me a stronger dude.

I am going away for the weekend and I wanted to ensure I get my squatting in beforehand. I'll do assistance work when I can.

Really liked the new conventional setup, and I think I got my sumo pull in order. Let me know what you think.

Snatch Grip
255x8x3

Strict Toe Elevated GM
185x8x3

BB Row
225x8x3

Short and sweet as I'm on my way to therapy. Good training session. I tightened up my GM form, trying to protect the back and hit my posterior chain. I know I can squat 275 with a heavy forward lean, but my backside needs the work. Weight is at 210, feeling good heading into my meet cycle.

You need to widen both your stance and grip on your sumo. You're also pulling slightly back; if you watch your feet, you'll see the toe of your shoe shifting a lot.

It's more of the grip width that concerns me as your are slightly more narrow than shoulder-width and it may lead to you hitting your thighs on the way up to the *******.

That's initially why I moved my hands in. At shoulder width, my arms were hitting my thighs. I'll need to go over that again. Did you happen to notice anything from my squatting? I figured if I'm looking for briefs, I had better start squatting the way I need to in gear.

That's initially why I moved my hands in. At shoulder width, my arms were hitting my thighs. I'll need to go over that again. Did you happen to notice anything from my squatting? I figured if I'm looking for briefs, I had better start squatting the way I need to in gear.

Multi-ply briefs will force your stance out on both squat and deadlift, so it's hard to exactly replicate the stance raw.

Yeah, I met the Cube inventor. Yeah, he's wearing a Cube shirt. Yeah, the U on his shirt is a hammer and sickle. For reference's sake, I am currently 5'9" and 220 with a size 7 5/8 head. Brandon Lilly is a large bro.

Well, I asked him where I could get a Cube shirt. He was hanging in the Animal Cage before his big beltless pull yesterday and I exploited the one weakness of all of these guys: their need for vast quantities of food. I told him I was enjoying the program and he was happy to hear that. Very accomodating guy. The amount of food I've seen eaten is ridiculous. I got a picture with Mark Bell mid-Subway. Evan Centopani was in the Cage eating for an hour straight.

I could've gotten a picture with Ed Coan, but he was like the first guy I saw, and I was not mentally prepared for it.

I'm going back to Westside for the upcoming meet, since the injury and trip to Columbus both messed up my schedule. I went Westside today and this is probably the last time I'll squat heavy until after the meet, especially considering how today went.

ME Squat
405x1 add knee wraps
460x0 random spotter caught me at the bottom. Finished the rep, but it was a no rep. Never attempting PRs with a random spotter again.
500x1 hopefully you agree. The random spotter talked me into it. Against my better judgement, I made the effort. And got it.

DB Side Bends,
100x15x3

Leg Raises
20x3

DB Split Squats
35x12x3

Leg Press
10 Platesx25x2

Cat-Back Rows (from Cube book)
115x8x3

I have to say, the combination of learning how to properly wrap my knees, taking Enhanced, and Cubing and Westside method all year has really done wonders. That hood rat ****-talked me into doing 500, and I had Lamonster spot me so it didn't get ****ed up, and I got a huge PR. Depth looked good, form was awfully ugly. I'll post it up here soon.

Yeah, it's Push/Pull. From here on out I'll probably squat sumo-ish to build a sumo pull. I weighed 218, so my body loved having some weight on it again. Got my bodyfat tested for the first time in eons, too. I'm at 17%, which I'll gladly take.

That squat may not have counted. Your hips weren't locked at the beginning and you started moving forward before a hold at the top. Of course, if you're working out of a mono, then that won't be an issue.

Speed Bench (alternate pinkie and ring finger on ring)
255x3x7
Good speed, good upper back tightness.
Tweaked setup (more weight on feet, less butt on bench)

JM Press
135x20
155x15
175x8
185x5.5 squashed like a bug and barely benched it off. Another America's Funniest Video nominee had I filmed.

Press
135x6
115x12x2

BW Pullup/Low Cable Row/High Pulley Row
6x3/140x15x3/140x15x3

Finally two good sessions in a row. Obviously after handling a new max, lighter weight was in order. The weight felt slow, but the tape showed 70% 1RM moving fast. Hopefully I'm going to peak in a month and not in a week, because I'm feeling awesome.

I've decided not to pull in the meet. I figured I'd test how my rehab is going and see where I'd open. I'm not a SHW professional multi-ply squat-and-bench specialist, and as such, there is no reason my deadlift opener should be in the vicinity of what I expect to bench. A new spot on my lower back was bothering me today, and once again it only happens when I deadlift or GM. Going to start over on pulls and take it even slower this time.